04.22.20 COVID-19 Briefing Live Stream Transcript

The County of Santa Clara
April 22, 2020
Live Stream - Live with the County of Santa Clara
10am PT


Ricardo Romero-Morales: Good morning, my name is Ricardo Romero-Morales and I'm a Public Information Officer here at the Emergency Operations Center in the County of Santa Clara.

Today, we're here with the Director of the County Department of Environmental Health, Michael Balliet. Good morning, Michael.

Michael Balliet: Good morning Ricardo. Thank you for having me.

RRM: Of course, it's a pleasure having you here. Before we get started we want to let you know that there is essential roadwork happening outside of our studio today so we do apologize if you hear any construction noise in the background. Also, we want to take this moment to acknowledge the fact that we have removed our face coverings for this segment. This will allow our American sign language interpreter to be able to better understand what we're saying.

Also, I want to remind you that right after that we're gonna go ahead and put them back on.
And also, wanna remind you of our latest announcement which is that our Facebook Lives are now happening on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 10 a.m. and that started this week.

Also, if you're wondering about the most recent update about COVID-19 in Santa Clara County
want to let you know that there will be an update from the Health Officer today at 10:45 here on Facebook Live right after this segment.

And today we're here to actually talk about serving food and take out during COVID19. The shelter-in-place order is intended to minimize physical interaction between people in Santa Clara County.  However, it is important to ensure that everyone can continue to access essential goods and essential services. Food is one of those essential goods and buying food is one of those essential activities.

To tell us more about how to buy and serve food safely, we have the county Director of Environmental Health, Michael Balliet. Michael, again good morning. It is a pleasure to have you here.  Our community has a lot of questions for you. So, we're so happy that you're here.

MB: Great thanks Ricardo. So, first of all I just want to say thank you to everybody for having me here today. I think that the food issue is something that a lot of people are really interested in. There's a lot of information that's going on out there that is you know could be difficult to understand and so the first thing is that the Department of Environmental Health is actually a larger part of the consumer Environmental Protection Agency for the County of Santa Clara. And to that end I also want to wish everybody a happy Earth Day and as one reminder for Earth Day please make sure your trash ends up in the garbage not in our creeks. So please help us do your part and ensuring that happens and some of the things that we work on through the department is to support the shelter in place order and ensuring that restaurants and other food facilities throughout the county understand what they need to do in order to comply with the shelter-in-place order.

And so, there's a lot of different things that our organization normally looks at and there's other operations going on that I won't cover today but essentially you know our organization covers everything from food, to water, to hazardous materials, and solid waste and vector control. And just as a quick note want to wish everybody a happy Administrative Professionals Day today. And also thank you to all of the essential workers out there serving our community. In particular our staff has worked very closely with the Public Health Department in developing the requirements for food facilities and recommendations and we'll talk a little bit about some of those, Ricardo, a little bit later.

But you know some of the efforts that we've made is we actually did three different mailers of over 9500 detailed letters and guidances that went out to everybody that serves food in the county and in addition to that we literally made thousands of phone calls, emails, and did numerous site visits to ensure that restaurants and other food facilities understand the operating requirements.

So, we've been very busy and you know we continue to check in and help our food facilities and restaurants understand what those requirements are. So back to you thanks Ricardo.

RRM: Wow Michael that is a lot of information and thank you so much for all the work that you guys are doing over there.  So, you mentioned that you have been creating all these guidelines but before we get into that, can you tell us about which establishments are considered essential and also in this
case what guidelines do they need to follow to continue operating?

MB: You bet! So, a lot of the essential businesses are detailed in the order which is available in its entirety online but essentially, they include grocery stores, farmers markets, farm stands, of course
restaurants, convenience stores charitable feeding, such as schools and the food bank, and pretty much any other type of business that serves food to the public. What it wouldn't include would be something like a tobacco store that puts a vending machine in there and then decides to stay open and so those aren't the kinds of things that we would typically see.

In terms of the protocols, we do have a lot of requirements for them to post and so the big one is posting the social distancing protocol and that protocol needs to be posted near the entrance and it needs to cover all of the items that are specified in the document and they also need to make sure they're implementing it. You know we really encourage people to stop and take a quick look at that so that you understand going into that restaurant or other food facility what their plan is because they may actually have expectations of you as well such as keeping your 6-foot distance from the workers.
Several different things are included in the social distancing protocol and I'll just quickly review some of them but basically employees need to ensure and that the signs are posted, as I said, and that they maintain the six-foot distance. They have to talk about proper sneezing techniques, I think a lot of us understand how we should sneeze now which is probably something we never really knew before. And then of course avoiding unnecessary physical contact with the workers there as well as the other patrons.

And then the other things that restaurants and other facilities are doing is limiting the number of people that can actually come into the building as well as putting some really neat ground markings you know we've seen a lot of different in creative ways of using Plexiglas for example to help provide a physical barrier and then also separating the pickup and delivery areas so that people aren't intermixing. And then I think the number one thing that our office said for many years to all of our food facilities wash your hands and there's a detailed list of when you should be washing your hands and it's
not just washing your hands it's washing your hands for 20 seconds. And the way I like to remember that is, I sing happy birthday twice so you sing the song twice and then you actually have 20 seconds.

And Ricardo the added benefit to that is it also reminds me when we have special dates coming up, like my wife's birthday this week, happy birthday babe. And then disinfecting and sanitizing and so a lot of discussion and the documents about proper disinfecting and sanitizing and again this is not new for food facilities. These are things that they should already be doing and making sure that high touch surfaces and other areas are actually being cleaned on a very regular basis.

And then finally you know just some tips that we would provide to people who are you know ordering out you know some restaurants and or grocery stores are offering, you know, senior only times when people can come and there'll be a reduced number of people in the building. Some restaurants are requiring face covers for all of their central workers. We strongly urge essential workers and the food facilities to wear face coverings and then we also encourage them to you know screen employees at the beginning of each shift and I think another thing you'll notice is that you probably get more full-service in a restaurant setting now then maybe you did before.

They'll be handing you things like your forks or your other condiments as opposed to taking those yourselves. And again the idea is that we're sort of limiting the interaction between people in the food facility. And then I think finally, you know there are pretty strict protocols in place you know for cleaning and ensuring that the facility is properly maintained even if they've had a COVID positive employee.
So, again I think the main thing here is that you know this is not new. A lot of these requirements that we're talking about really aren't new to restaurants and the food industry and the safety training that they have these types of things are covered pretty extensively but what I will tell you is some of the things that are new or obviously and new to all of us is the social distancing protocols themselves.

It's really hard to perform some of your work you know when you're trying to maintain social distance.
And then I'd also just point out one more item we developed some guidance on grocery type sales and so a lot of restaurants or have availability for things like milk and eggs and bread. And you can actually pick up like a box now from several restaurants that are selling grocery type operations.

We ask that they just make sure that they abide by the guidelines that we've posted on our website because again there's a critical need out there and we want to make sure that people have access to the food that they need.

So, Ricardo back to you I know I talked a lot.

RRM: No worries Michael. This is great information and I'm sure many of you out there are having these types of questions and this information is very beneficial for all of us. So, moving on to my next question.  As you know, since COVID19 many of us have been turning to ordering
food online and delivering services. Now, my question to you is should we be concerned about the virus being transmitted through any of those packaging or through ordering food outside of our home yeah.

MB: Thank You Ricardo, that's a great question and it has come up in a lot of different forums and you know we've really been looking at and evaluating this issue very closely and we continue to do so.

We've reviewed multiple reports from the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Agriculture, the World Health Organization, and the European Union and the consistent message through all of those is that it is unlikely to transmit COVID through food or food packaging and there's absolutely no evidence that that has occurred at this point.  And so, you know I think that as we continue you know messaging what people can do, again we get back to the frequent hand-washing as the number one item that people can do so after you've handled food packaging or food or anything for that matter, wash your hands before you touch your face or put food in your mouth.

And you know the other thing we've been encouraging too is that you know restaurants and as I said before restaurant workers you know we strongly urge them to wear face coverings when they're working.

RRM: Awesome Michael. Thank you so much and just one last thing before we move on. If our public, if our community still continues to have questions who should they contact? How do we get a hold of the
environmental health department's?

MB: So, there are several different ways but primarily I think that you can contact us through our email which is [email protected]. and you know that's probably the best way that we can get back to people and we have been doing that over the last four weeks.

RRM: Amazing well thank you so much Michael for being here with us again.

MB: So, Ricardo, one more thing you know I think we might want to cover the whole transportation and food delivery item. You know and so I have we had also prepared some guidance on transportation
and food delivery as they're you know delivery options have been very popular right now. And so, one of the items I think that we wanted to talk about was just simply the fact that you know one of the ways that you can get your food delivered to you is through a third-party app or restaurant itself.

We you encourage you to contact the restaurant to ensure or understand whether they have a preference because then you may only be dealing with one entity. And then drivers and everybody in the whole delivery process should be hand-washing again frequently and then we have several items on our checklist which is posted on our website but it gets back to just the basics which is hot foods being kept hot, cold foods being kept cold, preventing cross contamination both in the vehicle
and in the delivery process.

And then a lot of the third-party deliveries are also doing touchless delivery and that means that they'll just set it at your door and get going. And so there we go. There's the quick tips on food delivery and transportation and again that's posted on our website.

RRM: Amazing thank you. And again, if you continue to have questions about the role of our environmental health over COVID-19, please visit EHinfo.org/coronavirus. And again, thank you so much
for being here and for tuning in today. And just to quickly remind you we have an update from the health officer today at 10:45.

So please stay tuned here on Facebook Live. Again, thank you so much for tuning in and please remember to stay home today, thank you.

MB: Thank you very much.